Elisabeth Smolarz was born in Poland and emigrated to Germany as a teenager. Raised between two cultures affected by communist and democratic systems, and then having moved yet again to the liberal democracy of the US, she creates photography, video, and social interactions investigating how consciousness, perception, identity, and value are formed by one’s cultural milieu.
Smolarz has exhibited her work nationally and internationally for two decades. Her most recent solo exhibition, Mélloncene, was presented at Raizes Gallery at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA from September 7th to October 29th. Her multi-year project Encyclopedia of Things was supported by National Endowment for the Arts; the Queens Council on the Arts; and the City Artist Corps Grants program, featured on PBS on 03/14/20, and presented at the Morgan Lehman Gallery in October 2022. The German publisher Spector Books published a monograph with a selection of 120 portraits from the Encyclopedia of Things last Summer. Additionally, her work has been presented in venues including: The Bronx Museum of Art, The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, EYEBEAM Center for Art + Technology, Lesley Heller Gallery, NARS Foun
